What is Reddit's opinion of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature?

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This is the core question that is often phrased as "Nature or nurture?" Is who we are as people defined by our genes, or by our environment?

Unfortunately this is a huge topic that can't really be adequately addressed in a single Reddit post. The short answer is that neither nature nor nurture defines our personalities.

Sure, they each have some effect, but for the most part our core personalities are formed later in our lives as we start to explore the world. They are defined far more by our peer groups than by our parents or our genes.

I realize that this answer by itself doesn't help much, but if you really want a deep dive into this topic, I highly recommend somewhat ironically titled The Blank Slate, by Steven Pinker. It is a very well written and accessible examination of exactly this topic.

> But this is something that can instilled at an early age through education and emphasizes certain basic, fundamental ideas of how people should view one another.

This is an incorrect and baseless assumption.

>In Finland they teach people starting at a very young age about the importance of sharing and not being self-centered. These are powerful ideas when injected into people's minds starting at a young age.

Do you have any evidence that these ideas translate into any significant change in the future behavior of Fins, or are you just assuming it does? Why do you cast aside the possibility that native Fins have a genetic tendency, on a macro scale, towards less selfishness?

In fact, while you're at it, can you find me a single study, controlling for heredity, which found that you could make a child more caring and less self centered by teaching, in the long run? Because I've got a professor at Harvard who took the time to review the vast scientific literature on the subject and has found that it cannot be done.

>I guess you could say that I'm an example of successful social engineering away from my natural way of thinking,

At least, you're honest enough to say "I guess". Because that's all it is, there is no reason why a natural, genetic, tendency to resist conservative thinking could not coexist with a vulnerability to it (and triumph in the end). So no, saying that you are a success case is a big, huge, guess.

> People aren’t born “not decent”. It’s learned. It’s learned. It’s upbringing and environment.

FWIW, this has been completely and thoroughly refuted. People are not blank slates. Some people truly are born bad.

Look at school shooters, for example. A significant percentage of them come from loving, middle class homes. They still go and murder their classmates.

> I am no psychologist but that’s my theory and there are exceptions like mental health issues.

But what counts as a "mental health issue"? This sounds like a pretty big gotcha. "No one is born bad, but when someone is born bad it is a mental health issue." Well, sure. As a society, we define what mental health issues are, so we define that as "anti-social behavior" or whatever. But they were still born that way. It is not upbringing or environment (at least not the home environment), and many "mental health issues" aren't treatable.

If you are interested in reading an actual psychologist write about this stuff, I highly recommend the book The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. He presents evidence that decimates the notion that this sort of behavior is caused by upbringing ("nurture") or by the home environment. Except in extreme cases, such as abuse, parenting has a surprisingly small effect on a child's outcome. He shows that "nature" (what you were when you were born) is a FAR more important predictor of success in adulthood then nurture is.

He does this by looking at twins who were separated at birth. By examining the different outcomes of these groups, he can show that two twins being raised in differing circumstances rarely results in radically different outcomes, even if one twin had a substantially worse home situation.

In addition to nature, the biggest factor effecting your outcome is your peer group. In this regard, you are right that it is "learned", because a good kid hanging around bad kids will tend to follow their lead. But it is not learned at home, it is learned as a teenager. Your parents were right when they warned you about peer pressure.

Seriously, if you are interested at all, that is an absolutely fascinating book. He presents a ton of evidence to support his position, so I suspect he will change your view on the matter.